Displaying Data on Lower Resolution Displays

ABSTRACT

Data intended to be displayed on a higher resolution display such as a non-interlaced display used as a computer monitor may be converted for display on a lower resolution display such as an interlaced display. The conversion may be done in a way that preserves the intended frame format while enhancing readability. For example, in one embodiment, the frames intended for non-interlaced display may be preserved in size for display in the same frame format on a lower resolution interlaced display. Local magnification may be selectively implemented for particular regions to enhance the readability of those regions. Upon selection, such local magnification may provide pixel loss and color corrections in addition to local magnification. In this way the frame format may be preserved while enhancing readability.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/895,713,filed Aug. 27, 2007, which is a divisional of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 10/900,885, filed Jul. 28, 2004, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,280,153,which is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/301,238,filed Apr. 28, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,788,311.

BACKGROUND

This invention relates generally to the display of information intendedfor higher resolution display on a lower resolution format receiver.

There is increasing interest in displaying information normallydisplayed on a computer monitor on a television receiver. For example,set-top computers display computer information on an associatedtelevision receiver. In this way, conventional computer functions can beachieved without the cost of a monitor and in addition, computerfunctions can be applied to television reception. For example, set-topcomputers may implement electronic programming guides which allow accessto programming information on the Internet or other sources. Theseguides also allow the user to select programs for viewing on his or hertelevision receiver through interactions with graphical user interfaces.

Conventionally, computer systems display information on computermonitors in a non-interlaced or progressively scanned format making useof individual pixels which are displayed essentially simultaneously.Television receivers have conventionally utilized an interlaced display.An interlaced display may be divided into two interleaved segments. Theodd numbered segments are scanned first and then the even numberedsegments are interleaved in between to create a complete picture. Eachof the segments, which are formed by a scanning electron gun, may bedescribed as a “field.” A conventional television picture or frame maybe made up of two fields. Recent digital television standards may alsouse progressive or non-interlaced scanning approaches.

Information, which was intended to be displayed on a computer monitor,may be degraded when displayed on a television screen. Among otherthings, the resolution on most television receivers is substantiallyless than that of computer monitors. The interlacing of the picture onthe television receiver may also cause information to be lost. Inaddition, the color resolution of monitors may be better so that adversehue and color saturation may occur when displaying computer informationon television receivers.

In view of the lower resolution of most television receivers, adecimator may be used to intelligently remove horizontal rows of datafrom a frame meant for computer display. However, while this approachpreserves the layout of the frame, it results in loss of resolution.

In some cases, content developed for display on a higher resolutiondisplay may actually be displayed on a lower resolution display than wasintended. For example, content developed in a 1024×764 format may bedisplayed on a 640×480 display (such as a high definition TV display).Because the display resolution is lower, some of the data may bedifficult to read.

Thus there is a continuing need for better ways to display informationdesigned for a higher resolution format on a lower resolution display.

SUMMARY

In accordance with one embodiment, a method of displaying information ona lower resolution display includes receiving data formatted for displayon a higher resolution display. A portion of the lower resolutiondisplay is selectively enlarged.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a front elevational view of one embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart for software for implementing one embodiment ofthe system shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 a shows a hypothetical frame displayed on a computer monitor;

FIG. 3 b shows the same information shown in FIG. 3 a when displayed onan interlaced display;

FIG. 4 a shows a text block displayed on a high resolution,non-interlaced display;

FIG. 4 b shows the same text block shown in FIG. 4 a when displayedwithout modification on an interlaced lower resolution display;

FIG. 5 a shows a conventional frame displayed on a non-interlaceddisplay;

FIG. 5 b shows the same frame, displayed with magnification, on aninterlaced display; and

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing one embodiment for implementing thesystem shown in FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

An interlaced display system 10 may include a remote control unit (RCU)12, a processor based system 16, and a television receiver 18, in oneembodiment of the present invention. The RCU 12 may communicate witheither or both the system 16 and the receiver 18 using for example,infrared signals. The television receiver 18 is electrically coupled tothe system 16, which in turn, may be coupled to receive a source ofvideo such as a television antenna, a satellite antenna, a cable system,or another form of network connection.

As processor based systems, such as the system 16, are generallydesigned for operation with progressively scanned or non-interlaceddisplays, problems may arise in using the processor based system 16 withthe television receiver 18 or other interlaced displays. The problemsthat arise may be generally categorized into three types. One type maybe described as pixel loss, which is essentially the loss of one or morepixels of the non-interlaced display when displayed on an interlacedsystem such as the system 18. The second kind of problem that arises isa result of the higher resolution of the non-interlaced display whendisplaying colors and the effect of color juxtaposition in certaindisplays. The final set of problems relate to the formatting ofinterlaced and non-interlaced systems. Ideally, one would like to usethe original format of each frame so that the viewer may get the visualeffect which was originally intended. However because of the lowerresolution of the television receiver 18 as opposed to the intendedcomputer monitor display, less than the entire non-interlaced frame maybe displayed on the interlaced display.

For example, referring to FIGS. 3 a and 3 b, the phenomenon of pixelloss is illustrated. In FIG. 3 a, showing a hypothetical display on anon-interlaced system, a horizontal line 36 a, a series of shortvertical lines 38 a, a wavy line 40 a and a relatively thick horizontalline 42 a are displayed on a display 34 a. The same information,displayed on an interlaced display, as shown in FIG. 3 b, results inpixel loss. The horizontal line 36 a may be completely lost at least foran instance of refresh time. This may arise because of the interlacingeffect wherein first one field is displayed and then subsequently thenext adjacent field is displayed and each of these fields arealternately refreshed.

If the horizontal line 36 a is of a thickness corresponding to oneinterlaced line, it may only be displayed every other refresh recycle,resulting in at least its temporary loss. Similarly detail may be lostin the vertical lines 38 a for the same reasons. The same intermittenteffect may be seen in the wavy line 40A. Similarly, with the line 42 awhich may be two lines thick, intermittently, one line may be lostresulting in loss of detail, jitter, and other annoying optical effects.

Referring next to FIGS. 4 a and 4 b, the effect of lower resolution oninterlaced displays is illustrated. FIG. 4 a shows a text block 46 aintended to be displayed on a non-interlaced display 44 a of higherresolution. One way to display the text block 46 a on a lower resolutioninterlaced display is to display only part of the text block on thelower resolution display at any given time. Thus, part of the text block46 b would be cut off in the interlaced display 44 b. The problem hereis that often a given visual effect was intended in the design of theframe for non-interlaced display and this effect may be lost whenconverting to interlaced display.

Referring to FIG. 2, software may be utilized to convert formatsintended for display on a non-interlaced system into formats moredesirable for display on an interlaced system. Initially, a check atdiamond 22 determines whether the user has identified a specific regionfor conversion. This may be done by placing a mouse cursor on a givenregion of an interlaced display 18. Alternatively, a region forconversion may be automatically implemented adjacent the text entrycaret. For example, referring to FIGS. 5 a and 5 b, a line of text 50 aon a display 48 a may be clicked on by a mouse cursor 54 to create aregion 52 of local magnification in the line 50 b in a frame 48 b.

Thus correction may be initiated by the viewer as desired with respectto local regions. In one embodiment of the present invention, the entiredisplay frame may, if necessary, be reduced in size to fit in the sameformat as was originally intended for a computer display. This mayincrease the loss of resolution, but allows the viewer to see thedisplay as originally intended. In many cases, the flow of theinformation is somewhat tied to the formatting by page or frame of thatinformation, and causing it to spread from frame to frame may disruptthe flow of information. Thus in some embodiments, the information mayactually be formatted exactly the same as was intended for higherresolution displays.

Next, the software 20 may locate potential conversion loss areas (block24, FIG. 2). Once a region for correction is identified using either amouse cursor as illustrated in FIGS. 5 a and 5 b or the text caret fortext entry, the software may identify suspicious areas where it would belikely that pixel loss would occur. For example referring to the line 36a in FIG. 3 a, it is known that a thin horizontal lines may beintermittently lost. If the thin line appears for a relatively shorttime, it may never even be displayed, as illustrated in FIG. 3 b.

Thus the system may look for thin segments that may be lost insubsequent display. It may do this in two ways. It may look forhorizontal lines that are less than the height of one interlaced scan.It may also look for lines which are relatively solid but haveintermittent breaks in them and may assume that a conversion loss hasoccurred. Upon selection of that region for magnification, the suspectedmissing material may be provided as indicated in block 26.

Next a local zoom effect is created in a given region proximate to thecursor or caret (block 26, FIG. 2). Namely, a circular magnificationregion 52 (FIG. 5 b) may be utilized wherein anything within that regionis automatically magnified. Other formats may include rectangularmagnification regions. For Arabic text, which is read from left toright, the magnification region may, in one embodiment, be a horizontalrectangular box. For Chinese and other vertical reading systems, themagnification region may be a vertically oriented rectangle.

In any case, everything within the magnification region is automaticallymagnified using known software techniques used for text readers. Thismagnification may restore sufficient definition, using the pixel losscorrections described above, to make the material readable. Thus theviewer may select for magnification a region where the viewer believespixel loss has occurred. Correction may then be immediately implemented.This enables readability to be obtained without reformatting the entireframe, which could result in loss of flow of information.

Next, as indicated in block 30 in FIG. 2, within the selected region formagnification, color corrections may also occur. For example, colorsaturation levels may be automatically adjusted based on knowndistortion from converting to interlaced display. While high resolutioncomputer displays can display bright red pixels next to jitter andbleeding in interlaced displays. Color saturation levels may beautomatically adjusted to avoid this effect in the local regionidentified by the viewer. In addition, colors which are known not toconvert correctly from high resolution displays to interlaced displaysmay be adjusted within the local region.

The amount of time that the magnification stays resident is determinedby how long the user selects the appropriate mouse button in oneexample. In addition, the system may be such that the user can alsoinput desired magnification levels. That is, by selecting a differentmouse button, in one embodiment, the user can select a variety ofmagnification levels each of increasing magnification. Thus, if a givenlevel of magnification does not resolve the problem, still additionalmagnification may be selected.

In systems using an RCU 12, these magnification levels may be selectedusing the RCU in one embodiment. The RCU 12 may have navigation buttons14 used to navigate a cursor to a desired location. The desired level ofmagnification may be selected by repeatedly clicking on the selectionbutton 14 a until the desired level is achieved.

Referring now to FIG. 6, an example of a system for providing thecapabilities described previously may involve either a computer, atelevision receiver, a set-top computer system or another appliance. Theillustrated system 16 includes a processor 100 coupled to an acceleratedgraphics port (AGP) chipset 102. AGP is described in detail in theAccelerated Graphics Port Interface Specification, Revision 2.0,published in May 1998 by Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif.

The AGP chipset 102 may in turn be coupled to system memory 104 and agraphics accelerator 106. The graphics accelerator 106 may be coupled toa TV receiver 18.

The chipset 102 may also be coupled to a bus 108 which in turn may becoupled to a TV tuner/capture card 110. The tuner/capture card 110 maybe coupled to a television input signal 112. The input signal 112 may,for example, be a conventional TV antenna, a satellite antenna, a cableconnection, or other video source. The card 110 may receive televisionsignals in one video format and may convert them into a format used bythe system 16.

The bus 108 may also be coupled to another bridge 114 which in turncouples a memory 116. The memory 116 may store the software 20. Thememory may be a hard disk drive or a FLASH memory, as examples.

The bridge 114 may be coupled to a bus 115 coupled to a serialinput/output (SIO) device 122, a network 127 and a basic input/outputsystem (BIOS) 124. The SIO device 122 may interface to a mouse 126 and akeyboard 128. The SIO device may also be coupled to the RCU 12 throughan interface 130 to enable the system to receive inputs from a wirelessremote control. The network 127 may be, for example, a connection to atelephone network or a local area network. As mentioned previously, theRCU 12 may provide either infrared or radio-frequency signals which maybe received by the interface 130.

An infrared interface 130 may, for example, be in accordance with theInfrared Data Association protocols such as, for example, the SerialInfrared Physical Layer Link Specification, version 1.2, dated Nov. 30,1997. The remote control unit 12 may include a keypad 132 coupled to aninfrared transmitter 134 that transmits the infrared signals received bythe interface 130. A controller 136 may be provided to control both thetransmitter 134 and to receive information from the keypad 132. Thecontroller 13C may have associated with it memory 138, which in oneillustrated embodiment may be nonvolatile random access memory (NVRAM).The memory 138 may store the information provided by the system 16 toenable the RCU 12 to provide the appropriate signals to particularelectronic devices to be controlled.

The graphical user interfaces described herein are visualrepresentations of memory states. The graphical user interfacesdisplayed on the display 18 may be stored in a memory such as one ormore of the memories 104 or 116.

While the present invention has been described with respect to a limitednumber of embodiments, those skilled in the art will appreciate numerousmodifications and variations therefrom. It is intended that the appendedclaims cover all such modifications and variations as fall within thetrue spirit and scope of the present invention.

1. A method of displaying information on a lower resolution displaycomprising: receiving data formatted for display on a higher resolutiondisplay; selectively enlarging a portion of the information on the lowerresolution display; and identifying regions of likely pixel loss whensaid data is displayed on said lower resolution display.
 2. The methodof claim 1 including converting data formatted for display on higherresolution non-interlaced display, for display on a lower resolutioninterlaced display.
 3. The method of claim 2 including preserving thedisplay size of the non-interlaced information so that a frame ofnon-interlaced information is displayed as a frame of interlacedinformation.
 4. The method of claim 1 including identifying areas oflikely color distortion in converting from higher to lower resolutiondisplay.
 5. The method of claim 4 including locating high saturationcolors which are sufficiently close to one another to result in colordistortion.
 6. The method of claim 4 including correcting for huedifferences between interlaced and non-interlaced displays.
 7. Aprocessor based system comprising: a processor to identify regions oflikely pixel loss when displaying data formatted for display on a higherresolution display is displayed on a lower resolution display; and amemory coupled to said processor, said memory storing instructions thatcause the selective enlargement of data intended for display on a higherresolution display when said data is displayed on a lower resolutiondisplay, wherein said processor is adapted to convert data formatted fordisplay on a higher resolution, display for display on a lowerresolution display.
 8. The system of claim 7 including a remote controlunit adapted to provide input signals for said processor.
 9. The systemof claim 7 including a television receiver coupled to said processor.10. The system of claim 7 wherein said system is a set-top computersystem.
 11. The system of claim 7, said processor to identify areas oflikely color distortion and converting from non-interlaced to interlaceddisplay.
 12. The system of claim 7, said processor to locate highsaturation colors which are sufficiently close to one another to resultin color saturation.
 13. The system of claim 7, said processor tocorrect the hue differences between interlaced and non-interlaceddisplays.